St. Denis Street's 'battle of the flags' costs two people their jobs

Par P.A. Sévigny
le 7 mars 2012

More than a year after they first raised their flags and banners outside Yves Archambault's Le Marcheur-a shoe store located on one of Montreal's hottest retail shopping strips, more than a few business people with stores located along St. Denis Street wish the Tremblay administration would do something about lawyer 'Bill' Sloan and his group's Saturday afternoon demonstrations. Every Saturday afternoon, Sloan and his tiny little group of so-called political activists known as PAJU (Palestinians and Jews United) stretch their banners and flags along the sidewalk opposite Naot-one of the many shoe stores located along the sunny side of Rue St. Denis. Aside from being a retail sales outlet for its parent company which happens to be an Israeli shoe manufacturer and distributor, more than a few observers believe it's time that city's entire community begins to understand that this particular store is being singled out for consistent harassment precisely because it is a Jewish (not an Israeli) business that is owned by Jews who happen to sell products made in Israel. While nobody has tossed a brick through its window nor used a broad brush and yellow house paint to scrawl the usual epithets across both its window and its door, it's easy to see the Saturday shoppers avert their eyes as they pick up their pace in order to hurry past the bothersome picket line on their way up the street.

Aside from their original intention to boycott Archambault's business, PAJU's busy activists were forced to move their flags and banners down the street after Amir Khadir, Québec Solidaire's sole MNA in the National Assembly, was criticized in the city's French-speaking media because of his visible and audible support for PAJU and their efforts to destroy a business in the neighbourhood he represents. The stores are one block south of his riding. Compared to the original media storm which occurred when PAJU first began to raise its banners outside Le Marcheur, a cursory media check indicates only two stories have appeared about their Saturday afternoon efforts to wreck Naot.

“It's a bad situation,” said 60-year-old jewelry craftsman Thanh Van Pham who came to Canada after he saw the communists take over South Vietnam when their tanks finally rolled into Saigon. “We've been losing clients for over a year now and people don't want to come into the store because they don't want to be bothered by these people out on the sidewalk.”

Pham is a skilled craftsman who works in Oz- a mid-level jewelry outlet owned by Monique Oz who has more than a few choice words for Sloan, PAJU and their Saturday afternoon activities. “Are these people crazy,” she said. “Don't they know how hard it is to do business in this city?”

During a short interview with, both Pham and Oz said they tried to reason with Sloan and his supporters (who include Chadi Marouf and Sabine Friesinger, a former president of Concordia's student union) but they both said the PAJU activists didn't want to know anything about the damage they were doing to a retail business that depends upon passing pedestrian traffic. According to previous reports, Bruce Katz, PAJU's president, said his organization was concerned about “the big issue” and would fold up its flags and banners once Israel moved out of what he called 'the occupied territories' or when the store stopped selling shoes made in Israel. As Monique's business is located next to Naot it wasn't long before her weekend business began to slow down to a trickle after which she said her Saturday afternoon walk-in trade finally dried up and went away. Visibly annoyed, Oz told The Suburban she had to let two of her sales people go because she couldn't afford to keep them on the payroll. “This is starting to cost us a lot of money,” she said.”If this keeps up, it's going to put us out of business.”

Aside from the weekly counter-demonstration led by publisher and editor Daniel Laprès and a loyal group of friends and supporters who object to what Sloan and his tiny gang are doing to an innocent business, nobody seems to be taking the situation seriously. When asked about the reasons behind his efforts, Laprès said it's nothing less than a moral choice, “…et mon devoir,” [my duty, he added] when faced with people who are attacking a small business for no other reason except that it's a Jewish business that sells shoes made in Israel. “It's sad,” said Naot executive Corinne Lasoos. “It's very sad and what's worse is to see how nobody seems to know what to do about it.”

During a brief telephone interview, Lasoos said she wrote letters to ministers in both Ottawa and Quebec about what was going on in front of her store on St. Denis Street. “As far as I'm concerned, they're the 'Honorable Invisibles',” said Lasoos. Apart from a letter she received from Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's office telling her about the Ottawa protocol-a measure which outlines the present government's disdain for any kind of anti-Semitic activity, she said she is still waiting for some kind of an answer from political leaders in both Canada and Quebec about what can be done about a tiny group's ongoing efforts to ruin her business. When asked about her future plans to fight PAJU's ongoing activities, she said she was also planning to write to Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay, but at this point, she said that she was very disappointed with all the politicians and she didn't expect much action from any of them.

As far as Laprès and other merchants are concerned, a cowardly city administration combined with a complacent police force and a compliant community has contributed to a political impasse in which a number of small business concerns are being ruined simply because it suits a radical political agenda.

“As far as I'm concerned,” said Laprès, “…I'm far more interested in what people are going to do about this than anything people have to say about it. It's been more than a year now and these people are still there and if nothing is done to stop them; this street is going to begin to lose its business. Stores will begin to close and these brutes (as he calls them!) will be free to move on to ruin other people and their business.”